1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device for use as a recording medium for recording information signals such as a video signal and music signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recording media for recording video signals, music signals, computer program, and the like have been proposed. One of the recording media is a semiconductor device (a semiconductor memory device).
Information signal recorded on the recording medium may be digital data or analog data.
The information signal recorded on the recording medium such as the semiconductor device is easily copied to another recording medium in the digital form thereof.
Unlike analog data, the digital data is not degraded in the quality of video and sound when the copied digital data is reproduced. When the reproduced digital data is used on a computer, the computer works on the reproduced digital data at the same error free level as on the original digital data. In other words, the copied digital data has the same value and the same quality as the original digital data.
However, if data is copied without involving any degradation in value and quality, there is a possibility that a copyright of original digital data is not sufficiently protected.
When a recording medium having authorized digital data recorded thereon is sold in an authorized manner, the price thereof contains a charge for using the recorded digital data, namely, a copyright fee. The copyright is protected if the charge for the digital data is paid to the copyright holder thereof. If the digital data copied without permission of the copyright holder has the same value and the same quality as the original-digital data, persons may not bother to buy a standard recording medium having the price containing the charge, but may buy and use a low-priced recording medium having unauthorized copied digital data. The copyright holder of the digital data suffers from the loss of copyright fee corresponding to the number of persons who actually own the recording medium having the digital data recorded thereon and the number of uses of the recording medium.
There is a need for a recording medium which is free from easy data copying to protect the copyright holder from copyright violation.